COVID-19 Anxiety Spreads... SKT Offers AI Meditation Service 'Nugu Ma-eum Bogi'

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Cho] SK Telecom announced on the 19th that it will provide an AI speaker NUGU-exclusive meditation service called ‘NUGU Ma-eum Bogi (NUGU Mind Viewing)’ for customers tired of the daily ‘social distancing’ due to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

‘NUGU Ma-eum Bogi’ was originally planned as part of a ‘Mindfulness’ program for the happiness of SK Telecom’s internal employees. However, SK Telecom recently judged that many people are feeling anxiety and stress due to the COVID-19 situation, so it decided to open the service to all customers and completed its development.

‘NUGU Ma-eum Bogi’ offers a total of 41 types of meditation content for free. It consists of 2 types of morning and evening meditation, 20 types of breathing meditation, and 11 types of loving-kindness meditation. When users say to the AI speaker NUGU, “Aria~ play healing meditation from Ma-eum Bogi” or “Aria~ play 5-minute meditation from Ma-eum Bogi,” NUGU automatically recommends and plays meditation content by category or duration ranging from 5 to 15 minutes.

SK Telecom developed ‘NUGU Ma-eum Bogi’ in partnership with the meditation application ‘Mabo,’ which has recorded over 150,000 downloads, and plans to continuously update meditation content in the future.

‘NUGU Ma-eum Bogi’ also includes 8 meditation contents related to COVID-19. These contents were specially produced by Mabo in collaboration with Seoul Medical Center for isolated patients and medical staff. This content is provided for free not only at Seoul Medical Center but also via individual QR codes distributed by the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters to ensure psychological stability for COVID-19 confirmed patients and those in self-quarantine.

The AI speaker NUGU has strengths in non-face-to-face emotional services. Since last year, it has demonstrated the potential to realize social value of AI services by providing various elderly care services such as emergency calls and dementia prevention services. The monthly number of NUGU users reaches approximately 7 million.

Meanwhile, SK Telecom plans to separately implement a ‘Mindfulness’ program using ‘NUGU Ma-eum Bogi’ for its internal employees. It also plans to provide emotional diagnosis and offline lectures for employee happiness.

Shin Sang-gyu, Head of the Corporate Culture Center, said, “We hope that the meditation program, which received positive responses from SK Telecom employees, will also help many customers tired of social distancing.” Lee Hyun-ah, Head of the AI Service Division, emphasized, “We will put more effort into related development so that AI services can realize social value.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.